The appearance of thousands of dead fish in the Mar Menor reveals that the Spanish authorities have been looking the other way in an already inescapable challenge: the sustainable management of the ecosystem . Although the effects of DANA have been able to fill the vessel - torrential rains dragged land and pollutants into the sea - the truth is that this catastrophe is a direct consequence of administrative negligence in preserving the environment . Scientists and environmentalists have been warning for decades of the collapse that could lead to the lethal combination of unbridled urban development with the extension of intensive agriculture, whose subsequent victim is the headwaters of the Tagus. The Campo de Cartagena aquifer surrounds the Mar Menor. Since, in the terrestrial part, the groundwater of the aquifer cannot be used for agricultural uses, the demand of the irrigators when the Tajo tap is closed forces the use of dislocated water. To this we must add the scandalous permissiveness in the excavation of illegal wells.

The Mar Menor is considered the largest salt lagoon in Europe . It extends along 135 kilometers of waters that do not exceed six meters deep. Mar de Miguel reported very well last Thursday in Papel del fragile balance of a system that feeds on sea salt and fresh terrestrial water. The Government of Murcia, in the hands of the PP since 1995, has already shyly admitted that poor urban practices and the neglect of administrations are at the root of this disaster. Minister Teresa Ribera speaks of an "environmental emergency". Miguel Ángel Esteve, professor of Ecology at the University of Murcia, explained it clearly in La Verdad : "Our politicians were not up to par, they were first denialists (what is the problem?), Then relativists (we are all to blame ) and now fatalists (all the fault lies with DANA, what a bad luck we have.) There have always been direct hostages of economic sectors that can decide many things. "

Two decades later, the Mar Menor scientific committee should assume its responsibility and public powers, truly attend to experts. Otherwise, the integral regeneration of the lagoon will be a chimera.

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Thoroughly the death of a tiny sea

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